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Forum:Idea for Activism Service
Hi All. I just received an email from Jimmy Wales asking me to post this idea to the forum, so here it is! Summary A free software service which will simplify political activism by consolidating, organizing, and streamlining user participation in petitions, letters to representatives, surveys, meetings, marches, demonstrations, and other political action. The concept is distinguished from existing services by its targeting of casual users, its high level of automation and simplicity, and its user-edited and user-moderated format and presentation. Look and Feel The proposed service will be similar in look and feel to email, both in its web-based form and via clients such as Microsoft Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird. Like email, the service can be entirely web-based with complementary client-side applications offering improved organizational tools. Structure and Process A server will maintain a database of user-posted actionable items (such as petitions and letters) which can be downloaded, sorted, and acted upon quickly and easily with a high level of automation. In this way, it should be possible, for example, for a user to download any number of different form letters to representatives created by activist organizations (from Planned Parenthood to the NRA) according to his or her political interests, and 'sign' and submit them instantly via email. Users' accounts can maintain an encrypted digital signature, including name and contact information, as required in order to fill out form letters, petitions, and so on, so that participation is as quick and easy as point-and-click. The service can notify users when new action items become available, again in a way similar to receiving new email, according to a user-definable schedule. Submissions and User Editing/Moderation Users will, of course, also be able to submit and edit actionable items such as petitions, letters to representatives, or dates and locations for meetings or demonstrations, to a forum/bulletin-board system in the spirit of wikipedia, slashdot, or any other user-edited and user-moderated system. Political organizations will therefore be able to utilize the service to post their actionable items and thereby announce them to a (potentially) very large audience. Examples and Current Situation It regularly takes several months for Ralph Nader - a very widely renowned political figure - to raise 10,000 signatures for a petition or letter, despite his extensive support network and financial resources, a registered political party, and having gotten several percent of the vote in the last two presidential elections. Contrast this current situation with the proposed service: a notice of a new petition could just as easily be sent to 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 users whose 'filters' are set to receive notifications from Ralph Nader's organization. A balloon could then pop up, just as a 'new mail' balloon does with Outlook or Thunderbird, saying, "Ralph Nader has posted a new petition, click here to participate," and with one click each of those 50,000 users can immediately sign and submit that petition. Their account could even be set to automatically participate in all actionable items posted by Ralph Nader's organization. Simple. Easy. And free. Just as democracy should be. Benefits - To streamline the democratic process, making it easier individuals to participate in terms of both time and effort. - Ease and simplicity offer the potential to get large numbers of less proactive individuals off the sidelines and into the political fray, giving voice to perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands of individuals who would otherwise not have the time, energy, or inclination to make themselves heard. - A central hub through which political organizations can direct their calls for action; this stands in stark contrast to the scattered and piecemeal methods currently used to attract members, petitioners, and other participants. - Improved participatory democracy through information technology. Well, there it is. I hope you agree that it is a good idea. I'd dearly love to see it happen, and I think the forum here is an excellent place to start. Good luck, and if there's anything I can do to help - just as long as it doesn't involve programming - please just let me know! Cheers - Adam Dorr